Just Listen
by CopperSmock
Summary: Losing Edward in New Moon turned Bella into a passive tragic heroine; not so very endearing. But if she was actually going through withdrawal after developing an accidental addiction to vampire? That's more sympathetic. Unfortunately for her, the greater threat to her health comes from her possession of forbidden knowledge.
1. Chapter 1

"No Alice, no!" Bella said, batting Alice's hands away from the back-to-school outfit on her bed. "I'm sticking with this outfit and there's no way I'm going shopping for something else, I hate shopping!"

"But I know we could get you something so much better," Alice said, "I've seen it!"

"No!" Bella exclaimed. "You have to stop buying me clothes. Why aren't you listening to me!?" and trying another tactic she added "Don't you care that you're spending thousands of dollars on clothing made by children in Malaysia?"

Alice's reaction was vampire fast and furious, "Christ, it's not like I'm chaining _you_ to a loom. I just want you to look pretty, I like making things pretty, I like spending the money I've made."

Bella sighed.

"I'm not a thing, Alice, and if you don't like the way I look, well... I don't know what to say to that."

"Say you'll let me help you," Alice replied earnestly, reaching up to tweak Bella's hair.

"Gah!" Bella patted her hair down. "Just listen to me, I don't like spending money on clothes and I don't need help."

"Yes, honey," Alice said, still smiling, "You really do."

"Alice! You're condescending me!" Bella shouted.

"You mean 'being condescending to me,'" Alice answered.

"Exactly!"

"No," Alice said, "I'm being your friend."

"By forcing me to do something I hate and think might even be immoral?" Bella retorted.

Alice was finally annoyed.

"That's ridiculous. Fashion is fun and sure, maybe it is superficial, but I'm a veggie vamp guarding the future, my karma is so good I'm owed a little indulgence."

She spoke very quickly and Bella was a little slow to react, but when Bella's brain caught up she gave the vampire an incredulous look. Alice looked hurt so Bella started to apologise,

"I'm sorry, Alice. I just... Please, I'm set with what I've got and I should clean the kitchen before Ch..." But Alice was gone before she could finish.

Later that night as she lay cocooned in blankets with Edward spooned around her, she asked about the fight.

"Yes," Edward answered, "She explained to Jasper why she was back so soon and we all heard. It was somewhat astonishing, as a matter of fact. Alice is rarely unprepared for events."

Bella considered that statement. It seemed to her that over the past year Alice had been repeatedly surprised by events. Major events even, that had completely turned Bella's own life upside-down. Her thoughts made her feel ungrateful.

"Maybe I'm more unpredictable than average," Bella speculated.

"You're still a teenager," Edward replied with a smile, "you're all changing your minds all the time. Last week Lauren was utterly set on leaving for Los Angeles to model." Bella snorted,

"More likely she'd end up in Port Angeles as a hooker." Then she mentally kicked herself, "I didn't mean that. It sounded cleverer in my head."

Edward had stiffened, "That wasn't a nice thing to say. Especially in light of the encounter you had," he said.

For a moment Bella wasn't sure what he was talking about, and then she remembered the men and her panic at being cornered and threatened. She shivered and turned in to his chest.

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it," she said. "It wasn't funny and I'm so glad, so so glad you saved me."

Edward pulled her in a little tighter and Bella thrilled at his touch.

"I can't imagine losing you." he said, and there was a catch in his voice. "I don't want to even think about it," and he closed his eyes as though to block out the image.

Bella tucked herself more completely into his chest, and smelling his sweet smell all thoughts of fear were chased away. She clutched at her perfect boyfriend, her secret superhero, until she fell asleep.

The next day Alice acted as though nothing had happened. Nervously, Bella tried to apologise when they sat down for lunch in the caf, but Alice just waved her off.

"Don't worry about it, everything's fine, and you look fine." Alice dismissed. Bella still felt uncomfortable, though. So she brought it up with Edward again when he was driving her home in the truck.

"I don't understand Alice," she said. "We had a fight about shopping but she's just pretending it never happened. She doesn't even want to talk about it. I can't tell if she's upset or not."

Edward answered her, "If she says she's not upset then that's the truth. Unlike Rosalie, Alice doesn't hold grudges."

This didn't entirely reassure Bella, and she tried again, "But she was so upset. She actually walked out on me!"

Edward answered, "She got over it quickly enough with Jasper. If anything, she was more annoyed that she hadn't predicted your refusal."

This still seemed too dismissive to Bella. "You're making her seem kind of flighty," she said tentatively.

"Well, that's just Alice." Edward said, and with uncharacteristic frankness he went on, "We don't actually know how old she was when she was changed. Considering that she might not even be sixteen years old, and that she was held in an asylum," his jaw clenched and Bella could see his fury, "she's a great deal saner than many vampires I've encountered."

Bella was horrified. She really hadn't expected Edward to raise the subject of Alice's past trauma.

"My God, Edward! I wasn't trying to suggest that at all! I never would have considered...I mean, I know she and Jasper went down to Biloxi this summer, but I wasn't trying to link her actions to her past. I mean, she was changed eight decades ago..." she was jarred by the image of Alice as an eighty-year-old and she trailed off.

Edward continued smoothly, "It's fine, but Alice's past does matter. Our personalities are frozen just as our bodies are, so any clues to her past help her understand who she is today. Thankfully, her gift keeps her looking forwards and not back."

Bella thought about this over the next few days as she approached her eighteenth birthday. She'd always hoped to outgrow her clumsiness and to develop some athleticism. She started thinking about herself critically. If she was going to be changed forever what about her personality would she regret, and was there anything she could do about it?

Edward didn't seem to notice her preoccupation. He kept her close between classes, pressed his lips to her hair, her forehead, her wrist. He nuzzled her gently at night and let her kiss his face.

The evening before her birthday, after her shower and before Edward had joined her in bed, Bella tested some of her new resolutions in front of the mirror.

"I not assertive enough," she tried, watching herself. She looked pathetic. She straightened her shoulder and glared "I want to be asserti-" she jumped as Edward pulled himself in through her window. He gave her a lopsided smile and she caught a glimpse in the mirror of the sheepish smile she gave him in return, and then immediately felt annoyed with herself.

"I think," he rumbled, and the touch of his cold, hard hands gently brushing down her arms made her shiver, "I think that you are perfect just the way you are."

He pressed his lips to her temple in a chaste kiss. Bella inhaled deeply and smiled a dopey smile.

"Thanks," she breathed, then shook herself. "You're doing it again," she groaned, mortified. "Stop dazzling me!" He laughed at her and gently pulled her toward the bed.

The next day was her birthday, and Bella woke alone. She felt stressed and dissatisfied, she was eighteen years old, an adult, a year older than her eternally perfect boyfriend. She burnt her toast and swore softly and then guiltily looked over her shoulder, but no one was there. Outside the weather had turned unseasonably cold and she had to scrape frost from the truck, and then when she turned the ignition the starter had to turn and turn and turn before the engine finally caught.

When she got to school and Edward was finally in her sight line, leaned up against his car and watching her with his charming half-smile, her heart swelled and she finally relaxed and smiled back. For a moment everything was perfect and she turned her grin to Alice who, vibrating with excitement next to Edward, was holding a little silver package. Bella's heart skipped painfully and with a flash of nausea her previous anxiety returned.

She spent every possible moment of that school day cradled under Edward's arm, but she couldn't shake the uncomfortable presentiment that something was going to happen. She tried to brush off the party requests, she dragged on her homework, but Edward dragged on her too and she found herself at the Cullens' house that night.

Then it all came to pass: the paper cut, Jasper's blood lust, Edward's reaction and then his abrupt coldness, and before she knew it she was alone with him in the forest.

"Bella, we're leaving," the new Edward said. "My family and myself."

For a moment she thought about protesting, what about Charlie, her mum, and she didn't want to be a high-school drop-out. But that's not what came out of her mouth.

"Okay, I'll come with you," Bella said, reaching toward him.

"You can't, Bella. Where we're going... It's not the right place for you." She didn't really understand what Edward meant. Were they going somewhere where humans couldn't survive? She brushed the thought aside and clenched her hand in his shirt. She leaned toward him, looking up into his face and inhaling deeply,

"Where you are is the right place for me," she breathed.

Mechanically he answered, "I'm no good for you, Bella." Before starting to pull away from her.

"Bella," he continued "I don't want you to come with me."

Bella quickly loosened her hands and stepped away from him, her lower lip trembling, shock written across her features.

"You... don't... want me?" she stuttered.

"No," he said coldly.

"Don't. Don't do this," she pleaded.

"You're not good for me, Bella," he said. Then, "Goodbye, Bella."

"Wait!" she cried, reaching for him. But he was gone, the words "take care of yourself," drifting back to her as a whisper through the trees.


	2. Aftermath

Bella could hear the murmur of voices downstairs. Her father was on the phone again, with her mother or with Billy. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, not even her wet and muddy clothes, not the crowd of neighbours who'd come out into the forest to search for her. Nothing mattered but Edward and now he was gone.

She pressed her cheek to the smooth wooden floor and let the pain sweep through her. She didn't faint, or black out or swoon. She lay there with her cheek pressed against the hard wood grain and felt herself breath in and out. In and out. Dust moved across the floor. She didn't feel angry, but something in her hurt. Hurt like a silver pie server wedged in her heart. She grabbed her chest and moaned.

"Bella?" her dad asked. He was standing in the doorway looking down at her on the floor. She turned away. Her father watched her for a long moment. "Come on, hon. Let's get you into bed." He pulled her up and helped her under the covers, then reached across her and closed the window with a bang.

"Huh," he grunted, surprised, "thought that one was sticking." Then he ran his hand over her hair, pulled the duvet up to her chin and turned out the lights. He hesitated in the doorway. "I know it hurts, Bells. But it'll get easier. I promise."

Charlie let her stay home the day after her breakup, and the day after that too. He could still remember when Renee had walked out on him, and the debilitating depression that had almost pulled him under. Bella, for all the years she'd spent with her vibrant passionate mother, had always been a quiet, serious child, and like him, she felt things deeply.

Over the weekend he forced her out of bed and into the tub. But she drifted back to bed almost at once. On Monday, when he dropped by the house on his lunch break and saw her truck still in the drive he'd finally had enough. He stomped into the house and shouted up the stairs,  
"You're missing too much school, Bella!" Bella just turned her face in to the pillow. A moment later he called again, from her doorway, "If you miss another day I'm going to send you back to your mother!"

"No!" she exclaimed, sitting bolt upright. Charlie was disturbed by her expression, it was too panicked, too frantic.

"No." he agreed, patting her arm. "But honey, you've really got to get it together."

Bella dropped her eyes and then sniffled loudly.

"I know," she said.

It was hard for either of them to say much more than that. Bella awkwardly moved to get her housecoat, while her father headed back downstairs, but that afternoon Bella did make it to her classes. Feeling brittle and sharp, she shrugged off her classmates' questions and ignored their chatter. When Jessica asked her outright if Edward had broken up with her, Bella embarrassed herself by moaning and clutching at her chest again. Lauren, who was hovering behind Jessica, made a face that was half-disturbed, half-mocking and chuckled uncomfortably. The rest of her friends wore expressions of varying shock and concern.

Bella, who had never felt anything like the pain that was lodged again in her breast, didn't notice their faces. Hands wrapped around her torso to hold herself together she stood up and walked straight out of the class. Jaws dropped, her classmates watched. Mr. Banner looked up from his marking, puzzled, double checked his attendance sheet and then told the class to get back to work.

Dazed and dull, Bella drove home, she slumped up to her room and buried her face in her blankets. She tried to ignore the acute pain that had spread through her body and was now pulsing at her temple.

"Bella, I've got a pizza in the oven." her father was calling to her again. Bella was still buried under her covers, forcing herself to stay as stationary as a...as a vampire, she thought. Though every breath she took sent skittering pains through her nerves and straight into her stupid brain. Her thoughts were bounding chaotically, 'my desk is a tangent' she thought crazily, watching the light scatter up from the main floor and walking down to the kitchen. Her hand shaking, skidding as she cracked the wheel through the crust and the steam smelled like chimes

"Hello, Chief Swan, I've brought Bella's backpack." the door was saying, stop, stop, peel this noise away and she was reeling away up, him him, and it was hard and brown and smelt like electricity on a line, the line of the floor board.

Charlie turned to see Bella stumble past, dizzily dragging herself up the stairs on her hands and knees, the heel of one hand pressing her eyebrow down over her eye, the other eye squinting past him. He followed her up and found her crouched on the ground, pressing her face into the floor, with her nose bleeding all over the duvet that she'd dragged off the bed.

"Bella!" he called, but there was no answer from his mercifully unconscious daughter.

Bella awoke surrounded by tubes and machines in a beige hospital room. She could hear people speaking around her.

"I would know if it was coming from the res." her father was saying. "They don't have anything up there; it's just alcohol and solvents."

"This certainly isn't that." another voice answered. "We're also not seeing any injection tracks and the nosebleed is indicative of nasal damage..." She heard a muffled sob.

"Edward-" Bella called.

"Oh Baby!" her mother was on her at once, petting her face and squeezing her hand. Her dad was there too, tears in his eyes, as he reached for her. Bella tried to reach back, but she was completely restrained with straps.

"Bella honey, you've been so sick," her mother said. Bella felt like her sight was sliding forward and back through the room. Her body ached and it felt like her brain was being zapped.

"I need him," she said and saw the faces around her grow frustrated. "I need him," she called out, aiming for forceful, but sounding desperate.

"He's gone, sweetie," her mother said "remember they moved?"

Bella answered with a thin wail.

"Who is she calling for?" she heard someone ask. Charlie looked grim, "Edward," he answered, "Dr Cullen's son. Her ex."

"You don't think..." The voice trailed off and Bella distractedly realised it was Dr Gerandy.

"I don't know what to think," Charlie said as he stormed out.

A few hours later Charlie still didn't know what to think. The Cullens had completely vanished. He slid his chair back from his office desk and tiredly made his way back to the hospital.

Dr Gerandy was waiting for him.

"She's in rough shape again and still not responding to any of our anti-addictives. If she really is detoxing then the best plan is just to wait it out and keep her as comfortable as we can." They hurried together down the corridor to Bella's room, while Charlie listened to his daughter's wailing grow louder.

"I know that you want to see her," the doctor shouted, "but when you've got a moment one of our reception staff has disappeared and we're going to want to file a report."

**  
It took another day for Bella to recover coherence and all through that time she called for Edward.

"Bella," Charlie coaxed "did Edward give you drugs."

"No, no. I'm heroin," Bella mumbled.

Dr Gerandy shook his head, "It's not heroin," he said.

"His own exact brand." Bella cried, before her mumblings descended into insensibility once again.

Charlie returned to his office and continued to trace the Cullens. Billy had called to discourage him and Charlie had lost it "First you tell me they're dangerous and now you tell me to let it go?! What the hell is wrong with you? This is my Isabella we're talking about. They hurt Bella-"

He was interrupted by his deputy Mark.

"Chief, we've found her," he said gleefully.

"What are you talking about?" Charlie barked.

"That hospital secretary lady." Mark answered.

"I told you to check out the Cullen house!" Charlie bellowed. His deputy flushed red.

"But that's what I'm trying to tell you! That's where she was, in the house. She'd broken in!" Mark said.

Charlie was stunned, "What?"

"Looks like she had a heart attack though," Mark continued. "She didn't make it past the front hallway, lying right there on the entry carpet-" he trailed off looking uncomfortable.

Charlie called the FBI.

Within a couple days an investigative team from the DEA had descended on Forks, causing much mayhem and generalised amusement, but turning up little in the way of leads. Bella, however, wasn't there to see any of it. Charlie had insisted on a protective name change and had sent her off to Florida to stay with Renee.


End file.
